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Background: Paediatric hospitalization is recognized as a highly stressful event for children and families. Humanization of care is essential for children’s wellbeing and for improving treatment effectiveness. Although some evidence suggests that music-based interventions can offer benefits, further evaluation is needed in specific clinical contexts.

The project “Kids Playing for Kids” introduces live music performed by children into a pediatric outpatient setting, transforming a public hospital waiting room in Chile into a space of dignity, reciprocity, and human connection.

Objectives: This pioneering intervention positions children as protagonists and seeks to humanize pediatric care by fostering relational encounters through music among children from diverse backgrounds, enhancing emotional wellbeing, and creating a participatory cultural experience accessible to all. It challenges the conventional paradigm of the “child patient” – passive, silent, and anonymous – by restoring children’s agency within the clinical environment.

Methods: Concerts held periodically integrate music into the rhythm of the clinical setting. The playroom consistently becomes a temporary concert hall, marked by noticeable reductions in screen use and increases in curiosity, creativity, attentiveness, and joy. Qualitative field notes, narrative observations, and feedback from families and staff document the relational and emotional dynamics that emerge during each performance.

Conclusion: Experience suggests that sustained live music performed by children offers an original and impactful model of pediatric humanization, strengthening relational presence in clinical environments and enriching the emotional climate of care. Its scalability through institutional partnerships presents challenges but offers a pathway for broader integration of the healing arts into pediatric healthcare.